Mobile Devices

US Miltary Approves Apple iOS 6 for Implementation

It has been sort of a long trip for Apple’s iOS 6 but the operating system, one of the most popular in the world, has finally gotten approval to officially be used by the U.S. military. When iOS 6 was officially released last fall, there were plenty of problems reported that came right along with the iOS. Eventually, Apple was able to work most of those problems out and people who were flat out told not to use the operating system can now go back and use their favorite OS.

Eventually, industry analysts were talking about just how many people were using the new operating system. Just 36 hours after iOS 6.1 was officially released, more than 22 percent of Apple users had implemented the new iOS. That shows both a desire to get Apple’s operating system as soon as it is released and a trust of the company that is hard to match in the smartphone community.

Now it appears that the United States military is willing to put its own trust behind Apple. A recent statement by the Defense Information Systems Agency said that its security technical implementation guide (STIG) for using Apple’s iOS 6 had been officially approved.

Mobile device implementation always moves a little bit slower when it comes to military agencies simply because they need to make sure security protocols are there to keep valuable information safe and secure. It appears that that military is working through a spate of operating systems approvals as Apple’s thumbs up comes just two weeks after the DoD approved BlackBerry 10 smartphones. The military has also already approved a number of Samsung Galaxy devices that run on the Android operating system.

The U.S. military estimates that it has about 600,000 mobile devices currently in use. Of those, the vast majority is BlackBerry with around 470,000. Apple comes in a distant second with about 41,000 in operation and Android comes in dead last at around 8,700 mobile devices in use.